Thursday, April 03, 2008

Phillipe Starck bites hand that feeds

Renowned French designer Philippe Starck says he is fed up with his job and plans to retire in two years, in an interview published in a German weekly on Thursday.

"I was a producer of materiality and I am ashamed of this fact," Starck told Die Zeit weekly newspaper.

"Everything I designed was unnecessary. I want to do something else, but I don't know what yet. I want to find a new way of expressing myself... design is a dreadful form of expression."

Starck, who is known for his interior design of hotels and Eurostar trains and mass consumption objects ranging from chairs to tooth brushes and lemon juice squeezers, went on to say that he believed that design on the whole was dead.

"In future there will be no more designers. The designers of the future will be the personal coach, the gym trainer, the diet consultant," he said.

Starck said the only objects that he still felt attached to were "a pillow perhaps and a good mattress." But the thing one needs most, he added, was the "ability to love".------------

2 comments:

AaB
said...

I wonder if his comments are drawn out of unhappiness with himself or his audience?

I disagree that 'design is a dreadful form of expression', how can it be when it falls into the creative/creation bracket. I believe his unhappiness has come from spending his career designing to satisfy the committee and consumer.

Go back to basics Phillipe and start doing it for yourself! (Can you pass this on to him Brett?)

I'll have a word the next time I'm in Paris Mr B. To be fair to him, he has always maintained that he takes the high-paying, 'frothy' jobs to finance more worthwhile projects... and saying that he is going to be leaving it all behind him AFTER he has made millions always leaves people like you and me feeling a little raw!